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ANNIE BLAKE


I Am Eye Skins Still


clothes hanging out of drawers like tongues on a hot day        when my body is dying        i want
my husband to bathe me in chrism        when my body is dead        it’s not about me anymore
the only marker of life        i’m not sure if it’s death        for i have already left a shell on the shore

my parents taught me the bible and dictionary were made of concrete        i prefer to think of them
as a sewing machine        they both died without being sewn        workers        drivers        walk in caves
that rotate like transit mixers        to avoid disturbing etymology        to sew letters into pictures        to pour
stories into the wounds of the earth

the funerary that lies with me        is god        there is everything here        no scarab amulet        or bowls
or plates        i am the child of european peasants        inhumations can write stories        give me
the amulet of nefer        spiders coming out of walls leave room for perviousness
like my coffin softening in the floods        osteological analysis reveals god is lying next to my head
she tells me to write what she speaks        but when you ask me to edit i tell you they are not her real words  

i am in a reptilian stomach        its scales are clothes on the inside        but it is not me who is breathing
am i talking about her or god        that is a question like too many hands stirring warm water
to warm me in the bath        various teaspoons they place on my tongue        my father fed me
in his own way        he earned money by carrying heavy boxes on his shoulders        he didn’t believe
in technology        or trolleys        he wasn’t taught that way        my mother made lace by the light

of the lamp because her daddy’s body got burnt        he couldn’t interpret pressure regulators very well        he slapped
her in the face for reading a book about love        but he let her read it to him first        so she never learnt
to write        she tested the connective wires for radios        she started to learn to spin devices like bobbins
but after she married she wasn’t allowed to earn money anymore      

my grandmother slapped her in the face        for asking about a woman’s unusual underwear
hanging on the line        her mother didn’t like the radio        when she heard the war sirens in a story she ran
out on the street and slipped into the ground        the god in her wrote me a handwritten letter once
but by the time                                                                                  i typed it on my laptop i forgot what she said   



Annie Blake is a Goodreads Author and a member of the C G Jung Society of Melbourne. She's also a member of the Existentialist Society, Melbourne, Australia and a holder of a Bachelor of Teaching & a Graduate Diploma in Education.